Detachable sun visors for shading the windshield of a vehicle, of a kind for mounting on the front portion of the vehicle roof and projecting forward in a cantilevered manner over the windshield, have long been known. Examples include those shown in U.S. Des. Pat. No. 159,144 (Dieterich), U.S. Des. Pat. No. 157,555 (Abrams), U.S. Des. Pat. No. 155,434 (Maher), U.S. Pat. No. 2,777,732 (Walsh), U.S. Des. Pat. No. 239,705 (Lund) and U.S. Des. Pat. No. 273,672 (Lund).
A difficulty encountered with prior sun visors is that a given one will normally fit vehicles of only a single width or narrow range of widths due to lack of ability to significantly expand or contract the effective width of a given sun visor. However vehicles, such as pickup trucks and vans, are available in a large range of widths, ranging from so called "full size" vehicles down to so called "compact", "sub-compact", and "mini" vehicles. The width difference of the top of the windshield of these vehicles may be as much as a foot or more. Thus to provide conventional sun visors fitting a majority of available vehicles typically requires stocking sun visors of a number of different widths, leading to undesirably large inventories, with resulting large space requirements and costs.
Moreover, conventional sun visors are typically bulky and hence expensive to ship.
Accordingly, the objects and purposes of the present invention include provision of a split universal sun visor for shading the windshield of roofed automotive vehicles of different widths, wherein a given sun visor is adaptable to fit a wide range of widths of vehicles by substitution of a small central piece of selectable width, wherein inventory size and cost is minimized, wherein shipping cost and package size are minimized, and wherein the inventive sun visor is readily installable on a vehicle easily, with ordinary hand tools, by unskilled persons with minimal instruction.
Other objects and purposes of the invention will be apparent to persons acquainted with apparatus of this general type on inspecting the accompanying drawings and reading the following description.